THINKER'S ALMANAC - December 10

Subject: Social Loafing - Tug Of War

Event:  Birthday of Maximilien Ringelman, 1861

 

In school, do you prefer working on individual projects or do you like group projects?

If you happen to prefer group projects, do you believe that a group of people works as hard, if not more hard, on a project than does an individual working on the same project?

A French agricultural engineer named Maximilien Ringelmann, who was born on this day in 1861, did some interesting research in 1913 that gives us insight into these questions.

Ringelmann had subjects pull a rope attached to a device that measured the force exerted.  When individuals were asked to pull the rope individually, the mean force exerted was 85.3 kg.  When individuals were placed in groups of 7, the mean force exerted was 65.0 kg, and when individuals were placed in groups of 14, the mean force was 61.4 kg.  Based on these results, Ringelmann concluded that as group size increased, the average individual force exerted declined.  Today we know this phenomenon as the Ringelmann effect or social loafing.  In sum, when it comes to working in a group, individuals put in less effort than if they were working alone.  Furthermore, the decreased amount of effort is unconscious.  If you ask people about their individual effort within a group, they don’t realize or admit that they are putting less effort than they would if they were working alone. 

Whether you are a coach of a team or a supervisor of a group of people, knowing the implications of social loafing is important.  The key to mitigating its effects is to make individuals in the group more aware of and accountable for their individual contribution to the group.  Social loafing reminds us that while it is true that “many hands make light work,” it is seldom true that many hands make hard work.

 

Challenge:  Better Group Projects:  Write a public service announcement for leaders to inform them about social loafing and to provide them with tips on how to make individuals within a group more motivated and more individually accountable.

Sources:  

1-Psychology, Research, and Reference. “The Ringelmann Effect.”